Juan Gelman is one of the most read and influential poets in the Spanish language He has published than twenty books of poetry since 1956 and has been translated into fourteen languages A political activist and critical journalist since his youth, Gelman has not only been a literary paradigm but also a moral one, within and outside of Argentina Among his most recent awards are the National Poetry Prize Argentina, 1997 , the Juan Rulfo Prize in Latin American and Caribbean Literature Mexico, 2000 , the Pablo Neruda Prize Chile, 2005 , the Queen Sofia Prize in Ibero American Poetry Spain, 2005 , and the Cervantes Prize the most important award given to a Hispanic writer, Spain, 2007.Long biographical noteJuan Gelman is the most significant, contemporary Argentine intellectual figure and one of the most read and influential poets in the Spanish language Son of a family of Jewish immigrants from the Ukraine, he grew up like any other porte o, among soccer and tango, in the populous neighborhood of Villa Crespo At 11, he published his first poem in the magazine Rojo y negro, and in the 1950s formed part of the group of rebel writers, El Pan Duro He was discovered by Ra l Gonz lez T n, among the most relevant voices of the southern country s poetic avant garde, who saw in the young man s verses a rich and vivacious lyricism and a principally social content that does not elude the richness of fantasy Gelman has published, from his initial Viol n y otras cuestiones 1956 to his most recent Mundar 2008 , than twenty books of poetry These works, as Mario Benedetti asserted early on, constitute the most coherent, and also the most daring, participatory repertoire in spite of its inevitable wells of solitude , and ultimately the one most suited to its environment, that Argentine poetry has today , and Hispanic poetry in general, as the profusion of re editions of his books and numerous anthologies proves Gelman s poetry has achieved international recognition, with translations into fourteen languages, including English Among his awards are the National Poetry Prize Argentina, 1997 , the Juan Rulfo Prize in Latin American and Caribbean Literature Mexico, 2000 , the Pablo Neruda Prize Chile, 2005 , the Queen Sofia Prize in Ibero American Poetry Spain, 2005 , and the Cervantes Prize Spain, 2007 , the most important award in Hispanic Letters No one should be surprised to see him the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature one day.It would be relevant to note that Juan Gelman has not only been a literary paradigm but also a moral one, within and outside of Argentina A political activist and critical journalist since his youth, he was forced into an exile of thirteen years because of the military dictatorship that ravaged his country from 1976 to 1983, and the weak governments that followed In 1976 the ultra right kidnapped his children, Nora Eva, 19, and Marcelo Ariel, 20, along with his son s wife, Mar a Claudia Iruretagoyena, 19, who was 7 months pregnant Nora Eva would later return, unlike his son and daughter in law, who were killed their child born in a concentration camp The vehement search for the truth about the fate of these family members, which culminated in finding his granddaughter in Uruguay in 2000, has made the poet a symbol of the struggle for respect for human rights.Like other poets from his time and space, Juan Gelman creates his work starting from a critique of the so called post avante garde poetry, which surges in the Hispanic world in the 1940s and breaks with the powerful avante garde He is a poet who denies the labors of the Mexican Octavio Paz, the Cuban Jos Lezama Lima, the Argentine Alberto Girri, among others, to reaffirm it in his own way It is a poetry that goes against the current, transgresses the established social and cultural order, challenges the individualism intrinsic to modernity and the neo colonial condition A poetry that renounc